“Ach.” Groën slapped his hands on his thighs. “Then together we must figure it out. First, you talk. After, I tell you Jasmine’s story.”
While Groën made phone calls—to his sister, the insurance company and to Jasmine’s family—Rebecca and Jasmine discussed pizza. The girl insisted on picking the toppings, which proved a lengthy process. Their soot-smeared clothes were washed and dried before they’d placed the call to Domino’s. In the end she compromised: one with pepperoni for the purists and one with everything. Picky eaters could remove what they didn’t like. By the time the pizza arrived, all three were so hungry they would have eaten the cardboard boxes.
With tomato sauce oozing from the corner of her mouth, Jasmine announced she was pleased with her selections. Groën patted his stomach in agreement and eased his chair back from the table. He plucked a crumb out of his beard, tossed it at Jasmine. “I think you will be even more pleased with my surprise. Though, it is not to be eaten.”
He wheeled to the sofa to retrieve the borrowed robe. From a pocket he fished out something small enough to be secreted in his hand then propelled himself over to Jasmine. He held out the fist.
She knocked on his knuckles. “Open, sesame.” As commanded, he turned his hand over and unfurled his fingers. A small black square fell onto the table.
She squealed. “You saved it. My pictures.”
“Liebschen, it was in the cuff of my pants. I forget putting it there for safekeeping. It is so small. I didn’t want yours mixed in with the palm trees and luaus.”
The girl pulled on his arm. “We’ll develop it right now.”
He patted her hand. “I have seen it, Jaz.”
His mouth drooped to a frown. Rebecca eased the girl away from Groën. “What did it show?”
“Not so much. A rifle rising up next to a building and the arm holding it.”
“Not the shooter?” He shook his head. Rebecca caught his eye. “Then what? Did you recognize the gun, the clothing, the arm? Something about it?”
He shrugged. “It was an arm. White skin. Dark sleeve pushed up. Taut muscles hold the rifle, like so. And, just a small scar.”
He picked up his empty glass and asked Jasmine if she would bring him another soda. They would toast to life. The girl hopped down and ran to the kitchen to oblige him.
“Such a well-behaved child.”
When she was out of earshot, Rebecca asked him to explain about the scar. Groën responded by saying he had visited an old friend this afternoon, Hermann Friedlander, who also has such a scar. He picked at a loose button thread on his sweater.
Rebecca waited. “And?”
Groën sighed. “I wonder how much dark history is a good thing for an ebullient child to know?”
An excellent question. Would Rebecca have traded her contented childhood to have known the truth about being an orphan? She didn’t suppose so. Once something was known, it could not be unknown. As Jo was fond of pointing out, that was the lesson of the Garden of Eden. Knowledge extracts its own price in innocence lost.
Before she could persuade Groën to expound, the doorbell rang. The young Marion County cop from the fire scene looked disheveled, but energized. He introduced his partner, Ellison, who couldn’t have been over five feet, five inches tall. He was nearly as wide, so bowlegged Jasmine could have darted between his legs without touching either knee. He asked most of the questions, aimed most of them at the photographer. His partner took notes.
When prompted, Groën relived the hour before the fire. Five-thirty was normal closing. He was expecting Jasmine to return at six o’clock. He finished locking up at twenty till, then wheeled into his living quarters to freshen himself. Ten, fifteen minutes later he heard the window in the darkroom break. He was annoyed, but not alarmed. The window is barred. He assumed it was kids throwing beer bottles. “There’s not enough entertainment for the neighborhood hooligans.”
Then he smelled the chemicals. The acrid stench.
“Not smoke?”
“That, too. First I remember smelling heat, if such a thing is possible. Then I smell fixative, paper burning. Crinkling. Perhaps I am sensitive because I know fire and my photos mix with very bad results.” Groën rocked on his toes, moving the chair back and forth. “How was the fire started?”
“Professionally.” Ellison stilled the chair with his hand on the arm. “Someone fired an incendiary round through the window. It produced enough of a flash to ignite your stuff. Paper or chemicals, didn’t matter. Kaboom. The shooter could have been half a block away. Don’t suppose you saw anyone suspicious hanging around?”
Groën shook his head.
Jasmine, pressed close to Rebecca’s thigh, raised her eyes to Ellison. “The devil.”
“Yeah. You can say that again.”
Jasmine complied. “The devil, devil, devil. The very same devil. Shall I draw him?”
Rebecca pinched her shoulder to silence the chanting. “What devil, Jasmine? The one in the photograph?” The girl bobbed her head.
With Rebecca’s arm around her shoulders, Jasmine gave her statement.
At almost six o’clock she’d tiptoed into the bedroom. Rebecca was on the bed, talking on the phone, so she decided to take her bike and ride to Sammy’s. He would give her the new photograph, she would show him what Fred had found. Then she would bring the picture to Rebecca and surprise her. It was a good plan.
As she rode down the dirty alley, she heard glass break. Louder than a bottle. She straddled her bike, looked around. There was no one. “Then, in the alley, the devil was walking away. Whistling.”
Her description was disappointingly vague, even when embellished. The person was tall, but to her, everyone was. It was also forty yards away in a dim passageway between buildings, obscured by shadows. She wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman, but it carried a duffle bag—a bag of tricks. And it was dressed all in black: black boots, black pants, billowing black jacket, black cap. Of that, Jasmine was sure. When Ellison raised an eyebrow, she admitted that she hadn’t really heard him whistle. “But it’s what the devil would do.”
Ellison hunkered down to her level and thanked her very formally for her statement. She beamed. Then he asked her about the photograph she wanted from the camera shop.
That explanation did not go as smoothly. He was justifiably annoyed that the shooting incident at the racetrack had not been reported to the police. He stressed that if it had, Mr. Madison’s assault and the fire at Mr. Groën’s shop might have been prevented. The fact that her boss refused to go to the police did not exonerate Rebecca or the other crew members.
She didn’t argue. It had been a bad decision at the time and was looking worse daily.
He reminded them that they would have to go to the station house to sign statements on Monday. Rebecca nodded, then asked how? Short of tethering Groën’s wheelchair to the back of the Corvette, she had no way to get him there. The young cop said to call; they’d help her work out transportation tomorrow.
Tomorrow sounded good. Tonight was running out of steam. When she suggested that they turn in and save their discussion for the morning, Samuel agreed. His face was sagging, eyes glazing over. He bid them good night and wheeled himself down the hall.
Jasmine wasn’t so easy. She held out until Rebecca agreed that they could share the double bed. Rebecca turned back a corner of the blanket, waited while the girl said prayers and slipped under the covers. Once Jasmine stopped squirming, she promised that she would come to bed soon and keep her safe. First she had to make a phone call.
Rebecca wasn’t across the threshold before the girl leapt from bed and began digging through the pockets of her jeans. With a toothy grin she skipped over and held out her hand. In the palm was a battered hunk of gray plastic and metal bits. It looked chewed.
“Fred found it. Is it a treasure?”
Rebecca turned it over in Jasmine’s palm. It looked neither sophisticated nor dangerous, but it made her nerve endings tingle. Could it be? She pic
ked it up and pulled at a small wire soldered in place. Her brain cells screamed Yes it is and raced toward a nasty conclusion. Admittedly, most of what she knew about electronic surveillance devices came from watching spy movies. Still she was convinced that the mess in her hand was a bug. She would have dropped it in disgust, but Jasmine was watching.
Rebecca squatted down to her level. “Where did Fred find this, do you know?”
“Come, I’ll show you.”
The girl scooted down the hall into the kitchen. Rebecca followed, got there in time to help her with the catch for the slider. Jasmine slipped outside, bent down and pointed to the crack where the two doors overlapped.
Rebecca fetched a flashlight from a kitchen drawer and knelt to look. About a foot above the ground was a wad of what looked like chewing gum but smelled like putty. Judging from the indentation, it had once held the bug, or whatever it was, until Fred decided it might be good to eat.
Jasmine was grinning, waiting for approval. Rebecca told her that Fred’s treasure was very important. She would explain in the morning, if the girl went to sleep right now. Reluctantly, Jasmine allowed herself to be tucked into bed, a second time.
Squeezing the hunk of plastic in her hand, Rebecca walked out to the patio. If it was a listening device, who put it there? When? How far could it transmit? Was someone waiting in the neighbor’s yard right now to overhear—what? The babble of a seven-year-old and an old man?
But they’d just arrived. Before that, she and Hagan were in the house alone. Before that she and Ian. Why would anyone eavesdrop on their conversations?
It was possible that Hagan planted it to listen for the intruder with the photographs, who turned out to be Jasmine. If he’d installed it earlier in the day, he might not have had the chance to tell her. Did detectives carry such contraptions in their overnight kits alongside shaving cream?
Was it still working despite the squirrel’s sharp little teeth?
She sat at the table and opened her hand. Maybe she was wrong and it was a sensor for a defunct security system, or a temperature monitor, or something equally mundane. But the metal was shiny and the putty unsoiled. She was willing to bet that it had been installed recently. Why and by whom? What the hell should she do about it? She dropped it into the plant pot beside the dead geranium.
The clouds that had hung around most of the day were drifting apart. A smattering of stars peeked through. She took out her cell phone and opened it, waited while it came to life. Staring into the darkness brought back Jasmine’s description of the devil. Cap, shirt, jacket, pants, boots: seen from the back it was unadorned, solid black. From the front it might have been a uniform. Like those worn by the Speedway Police.
That was a depressing, unsubstantiated thought, which led like an arrow to Hagan. Why hadn’t he called for a ride home? She assumed the cops would keep him a few hours, just long enough for a testy interview and to satisfy Evans’s complaint. A quick check of his credentials and he’d be released. She was itching to ask him about the surveillance device, but should she call him? What could she say, knowing that their conversation might be overheard by the stranger who’d planted it? Or by a cop who had a vendetta against the Lotus team. Paranoid, but conceivable.
It would make more sense to call her lawyer, if she could reach him. Jo might be able to find out what was happening with Hagan, maybe even find out why. Groveling would be necessary. And postponing any confrontation over his visit to her parents. She could do that. She could forget about it entirely, just to hear his calm, reassuring voice. The one she was used to hearing.
She forced the bug deep into the dirt before pressing the connect button. The message window flashed, Calling Jo.
Pulling her knees to her chest, she wrapped the jacket around them. It was a navy L. L. Bean windbreaker belonging to Hagan, which he’d worn the first time she’d seen him in Head Tide. So much had happened so fast since then that she could scarcely recall what it had been like before knowing him. Or Jo. A cop and a lawyer. The two men in her life inexorably entwined by murder and mayhem.
Thirty-two
The phone rang twenty-one times before Jo freed it from his jacket pocket. Melodious notes he wasn’t used to hearing. The caller ID number said it was Rebecca who was being so persistent. He’d guessed as much. He should be pleased.
He was sitting at the edge of the dried-up brook on Ryders’ Mill Road. The last of the light had faded an hour ago. A chorus of crickets had begun their evening performance. Staring out over the shallow stream, he’d been reliving a picnic he’d shared with Rebecca the day he learned she couldn’t swim, that she was afraid of becoming entangled in vegetation and drowning. He leaned back against a fallen trunk, fumbled for the right button and said hello.
Her voice through the phone line was abnormally soft. She said she had house guests—a seven-year-old named Jasmine and a bluff old Jewish photographer. They were trying to sleep. She couldn’t. As explanation for her insomnia, she pieced together the story of finding Peyton Madison unconscious in the race car, his subsequent death, the fire at the photography shop and the little girl’s heroism in pulling the wheelchair-bound Groën from the burning building.
Jo kept his mouth firmly shut, but his mind whirled as he listened to Rebecca. Dorothea Wetherly had told him about the attack on Peyton, but not that the man had died. Now his death had been compounded by a fire that somehow involved a disfigured child who might have come too close to the gunman who had fired on the team.
He pushed off from the trunk, paced to the water. What was there about Rebecca that attracted people in extreme need? If he still believed in a god, he’d accept that a divine hand led the downtrodden to her, knowing she would help. Or die trying.
Or maybe it was just Rebecca. She had tenacity programmed into her genes. Maybe others sensed it, latched on to it, used it to their advantage.
One July day Jo had sat on the patio while she weeded wild grape vine from the perennial border. More than methodical, she was compulsive. Holding the broad leaves in one hand, she followed the thin, brittle stalks into the ground, felt in the damp earth, gently loosened the tendrils. Then went on to the next spot where it had sent down feelers. Inch by inch, she teased the vine from the leaf mulch, circled with it through the lilies and iris. As the strand in her grip grew longer, her smile grew broader—until, pulling out the root, she had laughed with glee.
She was fully aware that in another month the vines would be back, smaller but just as insidious. Weeds cannot be stamped out any more than evil can be. But she kept trying. Jo wished she would stop. He wanted her safe, particularly now, when he couldn’t be there.
When he tuned back in, Rebecca was describing the child’s optimism, her zeal for what must be a hard life, being different from the sea of people around her. From there it was a short sidestep to her conversation with her grandmother touching on the persecution of Jews by the Nazis. “Differences give life its color and complexity. Can you imagine a mind so small that it envisions a world populated by clones all looking, thinking, acting alike?”
He could imagine it; he didn’t want to go there.
He sat on a boulder and stretched out his legs. The sky was starless; he was alone with night sounds and unfinished business for company. Lots of it. His impromptu visit to her parents, his dinner with her grandmother, the airplane ticket in his pocket. He pushed them aside, wolves temporarily barred from the door. “Rebecca, yesterday I met with the Borden boys regarding their father’s will.”
“Is Elton still the loser?”
“They all are. Less than a month ago Cyrus sold his land to a developer.”
“Land? I thought he rented a shack and buried spare change in coffee cans.”
“He must have dug up the money. Last year he started buying up nonproducing farm lands, quietly. He didn’t consult me. No one in town discovered what he was doing.”
“If you didn’t hear about it at Flo’s, no one knew. What land? Where?”
; “One forty-acre plot. It abuts your back fields.” Jo let it sink in.
He heard a gate slam. Rebecca’s voice was louder, harsh. “What developer?”
“One out of Richmond. My contact there tells me he’s notorious for land-banking.”
“Are you going to explain that?”
“Naturally. I’m your lawyer. It’s what you pay me for.” He hoisted himself up to standing. “In two instances this developer has purchased farmland at less than market value then leased it for a mobile home park. His strategy was flexible. He’d either drive away the adjoining landowners and buy their properties cheaply. Or attract such obnoxious renters that the town fathers would purchase the land from him at a premium. Third option was to wait until the land was in demand for a commercial project. Not original, but effective, especially since he has sufficient cash flow to bide his time.” Silence. “Rebecca?”
“I’m counting to ten. Shit. How did that happen, Jo. The fields are my breathing space. I can’t lose them to a trailer park. He has to be stopped.”
“Then come home.” Please.
Her voice was brittle to the point of breaking. “I can’t. If I do, who’ll protect Jasmine? And look out for the team? Hagan is lolling in jail.”
Jail? Damn that man. “What the hell did Hagan do?”
Not really caring, Jo grabbed up his jacket, scrabbled up the bank, crunching dry leaves. He caught enough of Rebecca’s explanation to deduce that Hagan had gotten into a fistfight with the crew chief. She rationalized it as a power play, politics. She was fretting because he hadn’t returned, hadn’t called for a ride. Jo sincerely hoped the police would keep Hagan permanently. It would solve one of his problems. Trumped-up charges would work just fine.
Rebecca’s next sentence began with, “Could you—”
He cut her off. “Don’t you dare suggest that I come there to bail him out. Hagan is adept at getting into trouble. No doubt, he can weasel his own way out.”
“But—”
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